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Sherlock Holmes and the Rune Stone Mystery

2012

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Author:

Larry Millett

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson come to Minnesota, on the trail of the famous Kensington Rune Stone

Holmes and Watson are off to Minnesota for a third time, this time to retrieve the newly discovered Kensington Rune Stone. But the farmer who found the mysterious stone is murdered, and the stone is stolen the day Holmes arrives. With the help of one Shadwell Rafferty, Holmes must solve this baffling case to find both the stone and the murderer.

What separates this adventure from other Holmesian derivatives are Millett’s crisp writing and imaginative plotting.

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St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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Sherlock Holmes is bored between cases at 221B Baker Street. So when King Oskar II of Sweden—who has heard of the discovery of the Kensington Rune Stone by a farmer in Minnesota—asks to engage his services, Holmes jumps at the chance to decipher the runes and determine whether the find is real or a hoax. With Dr. John H. Watson by his side, faithfully recording every detail, Holmes makes his way to Minnesota for a third time. But, in the first of many strange and unfortunate coincidences, the farmer who found the mysterious stone is murdered, and the stone itself is stolen on the day the famous detective arrives.

With the help of one Shadwell Rafferty, now a friend and partner, Holmes must solve this baffling case to find both the stone and the murderer.

Larry Millett was a reporter and architecture critic for the St. Paul Pioneer Press for thirty years. He is the author of fifteen books, including five other mystery novels in this series featuring Sherlock Holmes and Shadwell Rafferty, all in new editions from the University of Minnesota Press.

What separates this adventure from other Holmesian derivatives are Millett’s crisp writing and imaginative plotting.

—

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Contents

Map of Area around Alexandria, Minnesota, 1899 x

Introduction xiii

1. “The Whole Thing Is Nothing But a Crude Hoax” 1
2. “I Guess You Haven’t Heard” 16
3. “Just Who Exactly Might the Two of You Be?” 28
4. “Rochester Knows” 41
5. “One Might As Well Have Stolen the Mona Lisa” 54
6. “Her Name Was Mary Robinson” 66
7. “Well, I Guess I Win” 79
8. “He Is Also Said to Be the Richest Swede in America” 96
9. “I Killed No One” 108
10. “Fooled You All” 121
11. “Give Me the Gun” 133
12. “There Was Something Very Wrong on That Farm” 145
13. “I Felt the Presence of a Horrible Chill” 158
14. “Murder Is Always Hard to Believe” 172
15. “I Have Formulated a Little Plan” 184
16. “You Will Have to Play Along” 196
17. “This Case Has Become a Conspiracy of Lies” 209
18. “I Do Not Have to Tell You What That May Mean” 222
19. “You Can Answer a Question for Me” 234
20. “I Don’t Like the Look of This” 245
21. “Bad Man” 257
22. “We Are Finished Here, Mr. Holmes” 272
23. “You Will Tell Us What You Have Done with the Rune Stone” 285

The trouble with fiction, as anyone who wrestles with writing it will tell you, is that it can seldom match the sheer weirdness of reality.

This explains why, when it came time to write my third Sherlock Holmes adventure in Minnesota, I decided to base my tale on the Kensington rune stone, an artifact so curious that no mere writer like myself could have thought it up. Sherlock Holmes and the Rune Stone Mystery is indeed a work of fiction, but a good deal of my tale draws on the vast and controversial historic record surrounding the stone and the wonderful cast of characters associated with it.